


Ducks' Ears, Demon Tear Ducts

by Azirashell_Ascendant



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Character Development, Character Study, Crying, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, My First Fanfic, One Shot, One True Pairing, One of My Favorites, Pining, Pining Crowley (Good Omens), Slow Build, Slow Burn, Soulmates, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 19:15:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20314618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azirashell_Ascendant/pseuds/Azirashell_Ascendant
Summary: Through the millennia, Crowley pushes the limits of his emotional expression. It works out for him. Eventually.





	Ducks' Ears, Demon Tear Ducts

**Author's Note:**

> Growth through Grief. It's not Angst, precisely, but I'll toss the tag up at your suggestion.

**Ducks' Ears, Demon Tear Ducts**

He didn't cry. After so many centuries, he began to wonder if he couldn't. He would have liked to; he finds it quite touching. It's reasonable, Crowley supposes, that tears are another type of holy water. The Holiest, perhaps, as only Love makes them fall. In 1862, when he finally stalked off fuming, he was in no mood to experiment. He felt those human-like shakes coming on, but rechanneled them back into anger. It got him home and into bed before the energy bled out of him. And then he slept. Until 1922.

He _couldn't _cry in 1967, staring at the heart he'd exchanged for having his own carved out of him once again. He sat stunned, just dimly aware of lonely, paralyzed silence; blank, and removed: the way they say it feels when the drowning finally stop struggling. He wondered distantly, Did his Angel bless the water himself? No. Not his Angel. Never his Angel? He dreamily stroked the cap once, and then forced his focus onto the tartan of the thermos. It steadied him.

He hadn't cried in 41 BCE either, when beautiful Aziraphale smiled into his eyes. The angel reached out to him (affectionately?), meeting his low-toned snarls with perseverance and good cheer. Saving him from a bitterness that might have eventually grown into despair. It was (_it is_) a beautiful smile. Crowley would have done anything for just a moment of its sunlight. So he does.

He did not cry when Aziraphale admitted his betrayal nor when he watched the tears in the angel's eyes begin to spill over. Instead he strode off. It is always thus: one bursts into tears. The other throws their shoulders forward into that brisk, upright, desperately nonchalant walk: and it breaks into hysterical running as soon as you are finally out of sight.

He came so close when he realized that, until Aziraphale figured it out for himself, he would Never choose Crowley over Heaven. Never. But he screamed his rage and pain instead of sobbing it.

He was too preoccupied with Hastur to tear up joyously when his Angel (his? his? please God be his) chose HIM at last. No tears as he flew to the bookshop; exultant Crowley laughed instead.

But now, scarcely ten minutes later, Aziraphale was not picking up his phone. Armageddon loomed large and--fuck that. It had only been _ten minutes_. What could have happened to him? _Who_ could have happened? No laughter now. Crowley was nearly sick with fear, sweat beading all over his face. Then he saw the fire.

At first, his horror came out as fury once again. But sitting on the floor, struggling to comprehend that he could not sense Aziraphale anywhere on the face of the earth, his rage broke.

He did not burst into racking sobs, as he had been afraid when the dam burst. They just...fell. Fell when he picked up the pretty green book by his knee; fell and fell as he held it close: the last remnant of all Aziraphale's treasures. They made tracks through the soot and sweat and the ashes of paper and wood on his face. They dampened his scarf, and then his shirt front while he sat in a corner pub, downing bottle after bottle of whatever was handy.

He thought he had cried himself empty when a flash of lightning sparked and shivered across his specs. He looked up into Aziraphale's transparent face. Crowley breathed deeply to steady himself into his customary nonchalance, but his voice cracked and he started to burst into those dreaded sobs in earnest. Aziraphale calmed him, this time with a soft, understated sadness; centuries away from the intimate cheer of Rome.

And then, Crowley did _not_ cry when he tenderly offered Aziraphale a home and a life with him. Offered, with no hint of temptation or command. Nor did he cry when his, his, HIS Angel laid a graceful hand over his own on their way home. Oh, of course, _of course, a demon's _tears could only be for rage or grief; all those bitter loves that had missed their way.

So no one was more stunned than Crowley by the tears that fell when Aziraphale, helping Crowley out of charred and battleworn clothes, brushed close and gently kissed him. Gently, so gently, and then confident, and firm. Insistent. Enveloped in softness, Crowley cried softly, and washed away his millennia of pain and sadness. Aziraphale kissed each and every tear away.

**Author's Note:**

> Companion to Yet Another Crowley Thesis (or maybe it's the companion to this?) 
> 
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
For the record, I think the Crowley Suicide Thermos is one of the sillier headcanons out there. If anyone, an immortal being would have a greater perspective. But this isn't really fanfic; it's just a little tone poem. And if you are dancing, you get invited to the ball.


End file.
